


Winter Trees

by shontos_garden



Category: Tatta Hitotsu no Koi
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-10
Updated: 2014-11-10
Packaged: 2018-02-24 19:32:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2593649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shontos_garden/pseuds/shontos_garden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Originally posted to Livejournal May 2007.</p><p><b>A/N:</b> post-drama; a bit of gossamer. For <span class="ljuser i-ljuser i-ljuser-type-P"></span><a class="i-ljuser-profile" href="http://kitsune714.livejournal.com/profile"><img class="i-ljuser-userhead"/></a><a class="i-ljuser-username" href="http://kitsune714.livejournal.com/"></a><b>kitsune714</b>, who loves Hiroto, too. ♥</p>
    </blockquote>





	Winter Trees

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to Livejournal May 2007.
> 
>  **A/N:** post-drama; a bit of gossamer. For [](http://kitsune714.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://kitsune714.livejournal.com/)**kitsune714** , who loves Hiroto, too. ♥

 

Hiroto opens his eyes on a white world.

He looks around, and trees surround him, tall dark shapes stretching their black limbs upward to a white sky. The branches are heavy, thickly iced in snow.

It is very quiet - so quiet that he can hear the sound snow makes as it falls lightly around him. The flakes are fat, heavy with moisture. Hiroto hears himself breathe, and it's louder than the sound of falling snow which lands lightly on his hair, his face. He closes his eyes and tilts his head back to catch snow on his tongue. He can't remember the last time he felt snow on his face.

He takes a step forward, and then another, his footsteps crunching loudly although the white beneath his feet feels soft, powdery, and it does not stick to his boots.

Her voice comes to him, a whisper floating back through endless, quiet trees.

_"Hiroto...."_

He catches glimpse of something, a swirl of red, from the corner of his eye.

He follows, leaving no footprints in the fresh, unbroken snow.

"Nao?" His voice is too loud in his ears. A pair of dark-winged birds start and burst from the boughs of a snow-laden pine, their wings fluttering as they wheel and arc through the air and disappear. Clumps of snow fall from the tree branches to land in a small heap ahead of him. Hiroto rubs his neck uneasily. "Nao?" he repeats more quietly.

He hears her laugh, close, so he spins, peering to see her through the trees. She laughs again, further now. He whirls once more, disoriented. He strains to catch sight of her.

"Nao? Where are you?"

"I'm here, Hiroto," her voice comes, "come with me." _with me_

He glimpses another swirl of red, and he finds himself pushing forward through the low, sweeping boughs of snowy pines that brush against him, thick and soft.

"Nao," he says. "Wait." _wait_

She does not reply. Red swirls again, almost out of sight. "Nao!" He looks down to see a pair of small grayish-brown rabbits hop into his path and gaze at him, their ears swiveling. Hiroto watches them, impatient. The rabbits study him thoughtfully before hopping off.

Hiroto begins to run.

"Hurry, Hiroto." _hurry_

He pants as he tries to keep up, catch up, but she is always ahead, just beyond reach, almost out of sight.

Snow slides from a dark bough down onto his head, falling into the collar of his coat. Cold fingers glide down his spine, trailing ice and chill. He shudders, stumbles to a halt, breathing hard. When he looks around he sees nothing but pine boughs with their soft green needles, brushing against him, heavy-laden with cool white powder. Hiroto thrusts his black-gloved hands out in front of him. A large white snowflake adorns the back of each hand.

"Nao!" he cries out in frustration and a hint of despair.

"Hush." Her voice is close, just over his shoulder, but when he looks, no one is there. "Don't be afraid."

He takes a step forward, and another, and another.

At last he emerges from the thick trees into a small clearing where a low cottage waits expectantly. Hiroto sees red flutter and disappear behind the brown door, which stands ajar, revealing a wedge of golden light.

He is torn between desire and fear. He hesitates, his hand outstretched for the door.

_"Don't be afraid."_

He opens the door and steps inside.

He finds himself in a tiny dark, vestibule where it is warm and humid and it smells like freshly-turned earth. The snow in his hair begins to melt. He crouches awkwardly to pull off his boots, even though they are dry and clean, and he steps up.

He squares his shoulders for the second door.

When the door swings open under his hand, he is momentarily blinded by dazzling light, so he closes his eyes. When he opens them again, the room is lit only by firelight and filled with shadows of things that are not there.

The cottage is smaller on the inside; he guesses that the walls must be quite thick. The fireplace opposite the entrance crackles merrily with a cheery fire, and he can feel the heat from where he stands by the door. There is no furniture at all, not even a chair. The walls are bare and alive with moving shapes, shadows that look almost familiar, but not quite.

Nao stands in front of the fire, and she is a dark silhouette, limned by firelight which gives her long red cloak a rosy glow. Her bare feet press into a small rug.

"Nao?" his voice sounds rusty to his ears, rough in the quiet room. He hears himself breathing, and that too, is harsh, dissonant.

Without turning, she stretches her hand back to him.

Hiroto focuses on it for only an instant before he is at her side, holding her hand in his, and looking at the profile of her lovely, lovely face. She begins to smile. His heart squeezes and skips a beat.

"Hiroto," she breathes as her full mouth becomes a smiling pink bloom. She turns toward him and lifts one hand to his cheek in a caress; he leans into her warm palm and closes his eyes. When she withdraws her touch, he feels bereft; he meets her eyes, and she looks down. He follows her gaze, follows the path of her hand as it skims downward over her belly, swollen and distended in a beautiful rounded shape. A long white gown swaths her beneath the cloak and her familiar slender form has blurred into something fecund and ripe.

His world shifts off its axis. Hiroto lifts his eyes to hers in shock.

"Is it-" he begins haltingly, mouth dry, disbelieving. "Is it-our baby?" He has never dared to hope for what he knew was impossible.

She shakes her head slowly; there is sorrow deep in her eyes where he could have missed it if he did not know her so well.

"No, Hiroto," she says softly. "This is our future." She takes his hand, the hand that is exactly the same size as hers, and she places it on the warm, taut surface of her belly. He is stiff at first, until he is not, until he relaxes into her touch, into her warmth, into the quiet he feels at her side.

She glides his hand over the swell of her stomach and he feels movement, like he never imagined a child might feel, and it is surprising and stirring, and he looks up to meet her eyes. They are dark and dark, and they swallow him, covering him in black.

\--

Hiroto wakes with a start, hands convulsively closing on nothing. He forces himself to take a long, deep breath, and to let it out slowly, to calm his racing heart. He is in bed, his own bed, and it's too warm under the covers. He turns his head, rolls onto his side slowly, trying not to disturb her. Nao had come home late from another exhausting day at school, and they had both fallen into bed not long after. Lately, life has been defined by long hours and too little time together. Work, and more work.

When Hiroto settles on his side, he realizes that Nao is awake, her eyes alive and sparkling as they seize on his face. Moonlight pours into the room through their thin curtains. Her dark hair glows with silver.

"Hiroto," she says softly, and he can't help it: he shivers just from the sound of her voice. Sometimes he can't breathe when she walks into a room, when she touches him. He can never quite believe that she chose him, that she chose _him_ , apart from everything her privileged life could offer, and that at the end of her day, she comes home to him.

"Hiroto," she is saying. "Are you okay?"

He tries to smile; the dream is still too close, too strange and he can't make sense of it. "Yes," he says at last, hoping it's true. He reaches out his hand to lightly brush her face with his knuckles. "Why are you awake?"

She shrugs, a tiny movement. "I was watching you," she says.

Hiroto discovers his throat is tight. "What do you see?" he asks.

Nao smiles with her eyes. "I see you."

She holds his eyes a beat longer, and he is unable to speak, his gaze sliding over every curve of her rounded face.

"Why are you so serious?" she whispers. She presses her fingertips to his lips, willing him to relax.

Hiroto reaches out to draw her in, to hold her close, her head on his shoulder, her lips warm against his throat. He feels her curl against him, one hand sliding up under his t-shirt to caress his skin. He can't help it: he shivers again and again beneath her touch until he is restless and shifting. Her warm body also shifts easily to accommodate him until he leans on his elbows over her, ensuring that she is snug between the heat of his legs that fit neatly around her.

"Hiroto," she says wonderingly, and his name in her mouth sounds like the stillness of deep winter, a nighttime hush that draws him down to her. He will never get tired of hearing his name in her voice. He gently brushes the hair back from her brow.

"Yes," he says before he kisses her. His lips are soft where they brush over her eyebrows, kiss her closed eyelids. He does not need to see the shape of her smiling face - he can feel the smile in her shoulders, in her taut neck that lifts her head up to find his mouth hungrily. He's surprised by the fervency of her kiss, and he finds himself responding in kind, harder, more demanding, as her arm twines around him to pull him down.

"Nao," he attempts breathlessly, but she shakes her head at him. Her eyes glitter.

"Mmmm," she murmurs, greedy fingers moving against him coaxingly until he can't help but respond.

"Nao-" his voice grows pained.

"Shhh," he hears. _"Stop_ thinking, Hiroto. _Stop_ worrying. Stop, stop, stop," she says gently, deliberately, in between touches, in between kisses. Her kiss reminds him of snow and a deep forest, and of his heart's desire just out of reach.

"Nao," he begins again.

"I'm right here," she whispers, and there is only her taste in his mouth, her scent on his skin, all of her, fathomless, into which he sinks. Hiroto remembers his dream, and he bends his head down to her again as she presses up to him. _Our future_ , he thinks just once before he can't think anymore.

\--

"Hiroto," she asks again later, "are you okay?"

He doesn't speak, but instead he holds her closer, and he breathes deeply, settling her into his side.

 _Yes,_ he thinks. _Yes._ He closes his eyes and he knows he can - _stop_ \- at last. He can stop, and breathe, and rest awhile, always with Nao.

FIN

* * *


End file.
